With the return of the world’s favorite sports franchise, now is the time for you to get a head start on mastering FIFA 16’s legendary online experience known as FIFA Ultimate Team, or FUT. When you enter the mode for the first time, the game prompts you to name your Ultimate Team, and then presents you with a randomly generated roster; the team name can be changed at any time.

 

One of the most important aspects of FUT is chemistry - how team members get along with one another. When you view your active squad you’ll see players connected to neighboring players with a colored line - either red, yellow or green. A green line means they get on well and have good chemistry. A yellow line means they have a little less chemistry but may have similar attributes. A red line means they have poor chemistry.

 

Defend together, win together. All of the best sides in the world are defensively successful because the back line works as a unit. In FIFA 16, new defensive AI gives players better awareness so they can decide between marking an opponent and covering dangerous space. Your teammates will track back to stop sophisticated attacking runs and close down angles of attack. If you look to close challenge an opponent you can rely on your teammates to cover gaps.

 

It means that opting to play with women’s teams isn't that frustrating experience of dealing with relatively sluggish, mid-level players that is experienced when picking sides away from the very best teams available. Scoring spectacular goals, going on dizzy runs and playing precise through-balls can all be enjoyed in the new game mode which should help make it popular. While casual players will always accuse each new FIFA game of just updating the database, those of us who play it religiously notice the subtle differences. This year’s are perhaps more subtle than usual but this general tune-up does the job it’s meant to.

 

It sometimes makes playing FIFA more frustrating, but as a result it’s more rewarding when things click and you pull off a neat passing move to scythe through an opposition’s back four. After your team is created, you have a number of options. You can name it, change uniforms, stadiums or even invite your friends for a friendly match. After doing all of this, you can start working on your team. The game once again offers you a number of options, including single player seasons, online seasons and a few tournaments.

 

Single player seasons offers an easy way to get coins, the mode will put your team against a few other clubs. It is similar to playing Career Mode, but without the transfers and all the other features. Some of your opponents will play on Professional or World Class difficulty, so keep that in mind. You can see the difficulty next to the name of the team. You will receive coins after every match and if you do well, you will receive more at the end.

 

One big issue I noticed after two days of playing FIFA 16 is the players have no sense of awareness when it comes to defending if you don’t control them. For some reason the defending player doesn’t run with the oncoming attacker, particularly before a cross and leaves the attacker wide open. I don’t understand why the AI defender can’t just run with the attacker, especially when it’s the centre back. It really seems like EA dropped the ball when it came to defending, and opted just go goal scoring frenzy games. Sure, it’s fun to score lots of goals, but it’s incredibly frustrating to concede easily avoidable goals.